ARENO, a genus of Palms, the only species of which produces Sago and Palm-Wine. Areng saccharifera, is described as a plant of an ugly appearance, having a trunk 20 or 30 feet high, covered almost entirely with coarse black fibres resembling horse-hair. The leaves are from 15 to 25 feet long, and pinuated ; their leaflets, which are from 3 to 5 feet long, widen gradually to the point, where they are ragged and prickly, in consequence of the projection of their hard veins beyond the margin ; above they are of a deep shining green, but on their under surface they are firmly coated with ash-coloured mealy matter. The stalks of these leaves have intermixed with their coarse hair stiff bristles as thick as porcupine's quills. Each bunch of flowers is from 6 to 10 feet long, and when covered with fruit is as much as a man can carry. The berries are of a yellowish-brown colour, about the size of a medlar, and extremely acrid; each contains three seeds.
This palm is found in all the islands of the Indian Archipelago, in moist and shady ravines through which rivulets find a course ; it is much used for the sake of its sap, which flows in great abundance from the wounded branches of the inflorescence about the time when the fruit is forming. A bamboo bottle is tied to the extremity of an
amputated branch, and removed twice a day, morning and evening. A single tree will yield a large quantity of this fluid, which when first drawn from the tree is transparent, with the taste and colour of new wine ; after a short time it becomes turbid and milky, and acquires a slight degree of acidity. When fit for drinking it is of a yellowish colour, with a powerful odour and a good deal of astrin gency. Strangers do not for some time become accustomed to it. It is exceedingly intoxicating ; but, if drunk in moderation, is said to be stomachic and wholesome.
Besides yielding wino, the coarse fibres of the stem and leaf-stalks are manufactured into powerful cables, and the trunk contains a great quantity of nutritious meal-like sago. Dr. Roxburgh mentions that 1501bs. of that substance were obtained from one tree felled in the botanic garden at Calcutta.
(Roxburgh'' Flora Indica, vol. iii. p. 627; Ilumphins' Herbarium. A mbainenae, vole The former calls this Palm Sag merits Raw phii.)